The barrel on the left is from a French cooper called ‘Vicard’. It was made with medium fine grain designed to impart more of the vanilla and caramel tones from the selected oak, which has been air seasoned for 2 – 3 years before a two stage toasting process to aid aromatic development and complexity from the wood tannins. This is it’s first use and it has been chosen to hold a portion of Shiraz from our Minimal Prune Graham’s vineyard, destined for 2017 Brothers. It will be checked and tasted periodically but will likely spend a total of 24 months in this barrel.

The barrel on the right is also from the cooper Vicard, but using American oak sourced from Pennsylvania. The different conditions enhance oak lactones giving subtle coconut flavours which will complement the French oak. This is holding 475 litres of wine from our conventionally trellised old Shiraz grapes on the Bobbie Burns II vineyard, which will also ultimately make it to the Brothers label.

These are just two of the many unique barrels we have on site, each leaving a trace of their unique origin story on the wine placed within them.